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Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance inhabits the dynamic extremes of ballet, invoking both rigor and ease to create a passionate expression of the ever-shifting nature of our emotions and interactions. By confronting rather than transcending the physical limitations of pointe work and other virtuosities idiomatic to ballet, Lavagnino renders the expressive tools to magnify remote or un-idealized aspects of the human condition such as aggression, fragility, and struggle. Biography and narrative are woven into the emotional fabric of the dance.
New Work
Fell of Night (2007)
Length: 23 minutes
Music by: Ludwig von Beethoven, Opus 131, String Quartet #14 in C sharp minor
Costumes by: Kiera Wells
For 10 dancers: 5 women en pointe and 5 men
Fell of Night derived its title from Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking. Loss and grief fuel Lavagnino’s creation of this touching series of vignettes. The duets exploring this subject range in emotion from despair to anger. The physical and mystical worlds intersect in these 4 duets and trio of other-worldly beings. The movement vocabulary contrasts classical and expressionistic contemporary styles for the purpose of clarifying the difference between the mystical and physical roles.
"Particularly pleasing about this piece [Suite] is the way Lavagnino mingles three subtly different trios, and the striking tangles and odd lifts that blossom quite naturally and gently among three people."
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice
"Lavagnino...twists the cliches of pointe work, bringing the genre gasping and flailing into the 21st Century."
Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice
"Choreographer Cherylyn Lavagnino has an extraordinary gift for sculptural design. Her dances are full of breathtakingly beautiful tableaux that the dancer's bodies seem spontaneously to find and fall into as natural endpoints to Lavagnino's organic movement phrases."
Lisa Jo Sagolla, Back Stage
"Abetted by her ultra-capable dancers, [Lavagnino] uses [pointe work] not as the extension it is of classical ballet's svelte, codified vocabulary, but with deliberate perversity, as if the capability were a bizarre twist of nature."
Tobi Tobias, The Village Voice
www.cherylynlavagnino-dance.com
Contact: Ben Pryor at 212.278.8111 x305
Email: benp(at)pentacle.org
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